Integrity and Compromise
by joemoe93
Summary: What are the consequences when Harry doesn't save Draco from the Fiendfyre in the Room of Requirement? Angsty oneshot.


(AN: This is a spoilery content/trigger warning. Stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled. Warning for suicide and psychosis.)

**Fracture**

The day Harry Potter's character failed him was May 2, 1998. And it was _easy_.

Later, he told himself it had been the panic. The surging, nipping flames; the choking smoke and rippling heat. The effort of keeping those faulty, hoarded broomsticks on course; the fight-or-flight urge washing away reason.

And so, as he raced toward that distant doorway, it was easy to pretend that frantically waving pair were simply more figures coalescing in the ravenous flames. Easy to lose their screams in the roar of the fire when he dove down to snag the charred tiara as it arced out from the collapsing piles of debris.

And when the doors boomed shut with a ponderous finality behind them, it was so easy to take a sobbing breath of relief; easier than turning around to face the newly commissioned tomb.

He paid no attention to the catch in his breath, that place in his throat where his inhalations snagged like a bare toe on a cracked edge of cement. He passed it off as the effects of the sooty, cursed smoke in his lungs and pushed it to the back of his mind. He had more important things to worry about; namely, one Lord Voldemort.

So, when that pathway arcing out from his scar pointed him to the Shrieking Shack, the three companions set off.

Rushing across the darkened, rubble-strewn grounds of Hogwarts, he felt once again whole and purposeful.

He coughed and his mettle threatened to fail him a second time. As those figures of hooded despair swooped down on them, he could barely force his lips to form the critical syllables. Had he been able to form a coherent thought, it would have been to put words to his agony, the feeling of shards of shattered ceramic being pulled through his skin.

He could have cried when he heard that soft, familiar voice speak to him encouragingly. He wanted to—he couldn't get a sound past the lump in his throat. And then, miraculously, the vacuum coercing his soul away from his body was gone and he stood up, wondering when he had dropped to his knees.

He felt their eyes questioning him. He wanted to scream at them, wanted to make them understand what it was like to be him. But no time: Away, to the Whomping Willow, to the tunnel.

And when, finally, he understood his fate, he felt a shifting inside him, like continents tearing apart on the tectonic drift. There in Dumbledore's office, hunched over the Pensieve, he was ready to die. So the continents weighing down his shoes drifted until he was walking through the Forest, whispering to the Snitch, wishing for a final hug from his parents—just one hug, one he could remember for what remained of his life.

It was with a steady heartbeat and a clear mind he walked to what he knew to be his death. In death, his mother had taught him, there is hope for life.

A flash of familiar green light, encompassing his life; one at the beginning, one at the end. It was fitting.

It was easy.

What, then, brought him back from that ephemeral train station? What stopped him from boarding a train away from the harsh realities of life?

Even in his limbo-state, he hadn't been sure what made him turn away from the inviting train car, so viscerally reminiscent of the Hogwarts Express. A nagging thought lingered in the back of his mind, but what little certainty he had was swept away in the wash of physical sensation as he returned to that clearing in the Forest.

The small, warm hand on his neck was a jolt to his gut, but the whisper that followed it was a lance straight through.

"Is Draco still alive?"

The lance was splitting him apart. He quelled another cough as he gave the faintest "yes."

_You liar! _the lance seemed to scream, but it vanished with Narcissa's hand. He tried not to imagine a physical counterpart to the crevasse yawning in his stomach.

For a minute he had solace cradled gently in Hagrid's arms. A sense of security seemed to radiate into him alongside the heat of Hagrid's expansive chest. When the moment came and he slipped under the Invisibility Cloak, the walls of the chasm had been sealed together into a crack, a throbbing scar.

That angry red line stayed whole, knitted together by purpose—and later, after Voldemort's death, by the jubilant spirit pressing into him from all sides. He celebrated and was celebrated. The War was over.

After they had taken an account of the casualties, Harry told Ron and Hermione what had happened in the Forest.

"And when you came out of limbo?" Hermione asked.

"I was on the ground, but so was Voldemort," Harry said. "He had someone check to make sure I was dead. He didn't say their name, just pointed. Her hand on my neck startled me."

He rubbed his throat. "She veiled our faces with her hair and whispered, 'Is Draco still alive?'"

Hermione gasped. "Oh no..."

"It was Draco's mom? What did you tell her?" Ron asked.

"Obviously, he had to lie to her," Hermione said, not breaking eye contact with Harry.

He could only nod.

"Harry, it's not your fault he died," Hermione said in that emphatic manner she always adopted when she was being almost forcefully sincere. "It's not your fault. And you did what you had to do to survive. Because of that lie, Voldemort is dead."

"I had to lie to her, tell her he was okay when I saw the doors shut behind us. Heard him screaming—"

"I think the git got what was coming to him," Ron said. "He was a Death Eater and an ugly, foul, pompous arse."

"Ronald!" Hermione scolded sharply.

Harry managed to turn his head in time to avoid vomiting on himself.

**Cleave**

The days passed by, flowed into weeks and months. Purposeless and increasingly alone as the war-tattered people around him patched up their own lives, the crack threatened to split open again. And it did, on August 27th, a damp Thursday morning.

Harry was sitting in the heirloom wooden chair in his Auror's office; they had given him an office instead of a cubicle for "substantial prior contributions to wizarding society," which was code for "killing Voldemort." A knock on his doorframe brought his head up to find the office secretary, a Spaniard named Raul, standing there.

"Mr Potter? Someone's here to see you."

"Okay," Harry said, bewildered. No one went to see Aurors in their offices, and he had specifically told the Daily Prophet to leave him alone at work.

When she stepped into the tiny room, his gut wrenched. She closed the door behind her. He couldn't meet her eyes; nevertheless, the aura of defeat hanging around her was plain to see.

"Three months," she whispered. Her voice raised goosebumps in bands across his skin.

"Three months," she repeated. "Three months until we found someone who could tell us where he was seen last."

She took a small step forward, lowered her voice further. "Someone who could tell us with _whom_ he was seen last."

"No." Harry's murmur was meaningless.

"Do you know what we found in that room?" She pointed a single, clawed finger at him. It threatened to slice open that still-aching scar. "Ash."

Now her voice wobbled, expanded. "Ash. Soot and fucking ash."

Harry coughed.

"I expected more of you, little puppet of Dumbledore," she hissed. "Honour. Courage. Good faith. All those trite little notions you claimed for your cause."

"I—I didn't want to lie—" Harry managed.

"Shut up. I don't want to hear your filth. My son's sooty tomb is cleaner than the purest words in your mouth.

"Thanks to you, I lived to see my son's tomb. I lived to know my son—my Draco—burned to death because of Harry fucking Potter."

"I'm sorry!"

She cackled bitterly. She was nearly screaming now. "Sorry! You're sorry! Does 'sorry' bring my son back to me? Does it?"

"No."

"No. It doesn't. So keep your god damned 'sorry' to yourself. I don't want it. I want Draco back! I just—" Her voice broke as she choked on a sob. "I want him back!"

She didn't turn when the door burst open and two security guards dragged her out. She had time for one last hiss.

"It's your fault."

Then they were gone and half the office stared at Harry through his doorway. He imagined their gazes as razor-edged beams of light and winced. He could feel them slicing into his skin and closed the door.

He slumped into his chair, eyes unseeing, and clasped his head in his hands. His fingers dug into his scalp as though pressing down the lid on a pot of boiling water; Narcissa's words rang in his ears and the ghost of her pointed finger was ripping into his psyche.

And then, the pressure vanished. He exhaled.

Harry stood: he needed to freshen up in the bathroom. He could clear his head and get back to work. He ignored the darting glances when he opened his office door.

It wasn't until he bent to splash cold water from the sink onto his face that he noticed his hands were shaking; he ignored them. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a figure entering the bathroom—a figure with flaxen hair.

Harry spun around. No one was there. When he turned back to the sink, he stared at his reflection. He was struck by the image of Malfoy bent sobbing over a sink in Myrtle's bathroom at Hogwarts, puffy eyes red and full of fury when they saw Harry.

_Stop it, Harry. Narcissa is just a grieving mother. She doesn't know the truth_.

_And what is the truth?_ he asked himself. _You can lie to her but you can't lie to yourself_.

A hundred protests rose in his mind, a score of reasons why Malfoy had been beyond saving, why Harry had to choose to ensure his own safety, how Malfoy had gotten himself into the whole mess anyway.

_You were a coward_, a venomous part of himself said. _You could have saved him and you let him burn_.

"Shut up," Harry hissed. His voice echoed on the tile and his chest began to ache.

_Harry Potter the coward. You belonged in Slytherin after all_.

He didn't even make a fumbling excuse to his superior before leaving—fresh air was what he needed, not simply cold water from a sink.

That bilious voice spat and sizzled, not letting up for a second. _You can't run away from these thoughts. All the fresh air in the world won't dilute your polluted conscience._

So concentrated was Harry on blocking it out that he walked straight into someone entering the Auror's wing.

"Harry! Hey, mate, how's your morning?"

He looked up, startled. "Oh. Hi, Ron. Actually—not feeling well. Need some air."

"Not another cursed letter? How many times do we have to tell those people at the Office of Owl Post Security to be more careful? Honestly..."

Harry gave a half-grimaced smile and walked off with a terse, "Gotta go."

_Ron thinks you as good as killed Draco Malfoy. He practically congratulated you, didn't he? Harry Potter the coward. Harry Potter the murderer._

_I didn't kill him_, Harry thought fervently.

_Then why do you feel guilty about his death?_

**Shatter**

The voice ceased the moment he stepped into his flat, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. Harry sighed and leaned against the door. His hand crept up to his chest, searching for a fissure he knew wasn't there; it felt as though his entire rib cage were being regenerated with SkeleGro.

At the sound of shuffling, or perhaps wheezing, coming from his bathroom, his hand dropped straight to his pocket for his wand. He adopted a crouching stance and carefully, quietly made his way toward the noise. Bracing himself, he pushed open the door with his fingertips.

Malfoy looked up from the sink, eyes red, face tear-streaked, just as he had done two years ago. "You!" he said in a strangled whisper, spinning around.

"No. Nonono." Harry clenched his eyes shut, turned away from the bathroom. "You're dead. You cannot be here. You are not here."

No answer.

Tentatively, he peeked. On the carpet in front of him lay Malfoy, chest gashed open and bleeding profusely. His eyes were wide, glazed over.

"Stop it!" he shouted, closing his eyes again. "Stop it. I didn't kill you then. I didn't kill you either time. Leave me alone."

Then, somehow, it was Harry on the ground; his body was paralyzed. With horror, he looked up and saw Malfoy looming over him.

"You always hated me. You always wanted me dead."

_I didn't!_ Harry wanted to scream.

"I could see it in your eyes, that day on the train," Malfoy said. "You loathed me. You'd take any excuse. Especially after I did this."

Down came his foot; Harry felt his nose shatter. The throbbing in his torso intensified, sharp pain lancing out from that invisible split.

He struggled to his feet. He tried to mend his nose the way Tonks had but the spell wouldn't work. He settled for pinching off the flow of blood.

"Malfoy?" he asked: the boy was nowhere to be seen.

"Imagine your shock and horror," a voice whispered from the bathroom, "when it was me on top of the Astronomy Tower that night."

Harry turned; Malfoy was standing on the linoleum, looking as desperate and haggard as he had the night of Dumbledore's death.

"And there you were, in the perfect position: able to watch without having to step forward. The coward's retreat."

"No," Harry protested. "I wanted—I couldn't... Dumbledore paralyzed me!"

"An excuse you clung to with all your strength, no doubt. Perhaps you didn't think I would actually kill the old fool. And you were right—but it was I who let it happen. Who made it happen. And that's when you swore vengeance."

"No!"

"That night, you swore you would kill Snape and me. Now we're both dead."

"I didn't," Harry said weakly.

Malfoy vanished, reappeared behind Harry.

"Then you were captured running away from Voldemort. You were brought to my Manor. Once again, I could see it in your eyes, when they asked me to identify you. But I wouldn't, and I signed my own death certificate. I didn't tell the Death Eaters it was you.

"Now look at me." In an instant, Malfoy transformed. Where his spartan, black clothing had been was now scorched skin, in some places burned away to the muscle; where his blond hair had been was now an angry, red scalp; where his face had been clean and smooth, it was now melted, distorted, ruined.

He tried to scream, tried to convince himself that his inflating lungs were not being punctured by shards of his fractured ribs, but he broke off into a hacking cough.

"You killed me."

"No—"

"You killed me!"

"No!"

Malfoy's specter-corpse limped toward him. "You threw me in the fire and left me to burn. You killed me!"

"Okay!" Harry choked on his words. "Okay, please, leave me alone. I killed you. Now leave me alone."

"You killed me," Malfoy repeated.

"I killed you."

Malfoy vanished once more. Harry saw movement out of the corner of his eye and spun to face it. There was Malfoy, restored, but this time with his wand drawn and held up. He had a wild look in his eyes. Even as Harry made to cast a spell, he could see Malfoy mimicking his movements, mouth moving to articulate an incantation.

"_Avada kedavra_!"


End file.
